Grill The Marketer

Back for 2025 with the same event vibe and awesome community that you've come to expect over the last 6 years. Our March guest is our first interstate panellist, Zeina Khodr, Chief Spark & Founder of Paper + Spark.

Zeina’s a published authority in workplace culture and Paper + Spark is an award-winning Sydney-based agency with a mission: to use the power of storytelling to solve real business challenges.

What sets Zeina and Paper + Spark apart is a simple but powerful belief: people come first. While others may focus solely on profits, Zeina's approach is all about prioritizing the human connection in business. This ethos has led the agency to become a leader across industries like Health, Wealth, Utilities, and Consumer - helping brands stay nimble, authentic, and emotionally connected with their audiences.

Combining creativity with data, Paper + Spark crafts campaigns and stories that resonate deeply, spark action, and drive real-world results. With clients across APAC and a growing presence in the UK, Paper + Spark has made waves globally.

The agency has earned several accolades, including three-time winner of the Australian Marketing Institute Agency of the Year (2024,2022, 2020). They’ve also been named a two-time finalist for B&T’s Emerging Agency of the Year, and earned a coveted spot in AFR/Boss Best Places to Work in Media & Marketing.

Zeina is deeply involved in shaping the future of marketing in Australia. She’s the NSW State Chair of the Australian Marketing Institute, winner of the B&T Women in Media Award (Entrepreneur) in 2023, and Certified Practicing Marketer of the Year in 2022.

Zeina shares her knowledge as a lecturer in Advertising and Digital Media, and is passionate about helping startups thrive. As an Expert in Residence for Innovation NSW, she mentors and supports the next generation of Australian entrepreneurs.

Season tickets will only be available until March 27th and ensure you don't miss an event - so save some money and time by registering once.
We get the greatest guests for you to grill. Stay tuned for more guest announcements.

The Event Background

Grill The Marketer, in partnership with the Australian Marketing Institute welcomes all marketers, business owners and managers, and marketing students - if you have marketing questions, come and ask them. Don't have a specific question - but you want to chat marketing with people who LOVE to talk about marketing? Great! Come along.

Are you looking for a marketing role? Maybe we can introduce you to your new boss. It's happened before.

Our community is generous with their time and skills and believe that when it comes to marketing, the better you do, the better we all do. That's why so many awesome projects and collabs have been born from this event. We LOVE connecting our networks.

We don't enjoy events with pitches, boring PowerPoint pressos, and upsells. So Grill The Marketer is simply our marketing brains directed at your challenge or topic. What would go for a bundle in consulting fees or training dollars, comes to you in this fun package for less than your Tuesday night Uber Eat order.

The Marketer will let you grill them on their areas of expertise, and those of the guest panellist/s, and MC Jacqueline will keep us all on track.

Some of our previous guests include; Kate Kirwin from She Codes & Young Australian of the Year, Hannah Muirhead, formerly of The Brand Agency, Amber Martin of Hypnosis Creative Agency, Alison Balch, CMO at Penanet, David "DG" Gardiner from DGPR, Crown Perth's Kelly Townson, TikTok sensation Seva Mozhaev (@sevspics), Cory Gale from Tourism WA, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Rare Callum Mackenzie, and Pretzel founder, Brittany Garbutt.

So you KNOW no matter the guest or topic, we bring you the most interesting people willing to put themselves out there to answer whatever you throw at them.

You'll love the informal format and awesome community vibe while we help you explore your marketing curiosity with passion and the odd tangent.

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Cost: $48+bf (includes snacks)

Date: Multiple

Where: The Court | Verdict Bar (upstairs)

Time: 5.30pm - 8.30pm

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How does this all work anyway?

Come along, grab yourself a drink at the bar and mingle. Our crew's super welcoming and friendly so you'll be totally fine to rock up by yourself.

Our MC will let you know when it's time to start. We'll introduce ourselves, outline the event, and intro your marketing question answer-ers.

If you're called on to ask your question, please say your name and the business/industry your question relates to and we'll do our best to tailor our answers to you specifically.

Once we’re done feel free to hang around for drinks and to chat more about marketing 🙂

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Grill The Marketer came about from talking to marketing event attendees who really just wanted their questions answered without the fluff and sales agenda.

Grill The Marketer is presented in partnership with the Australian Marketing Institute, and affords those who hold the Certified Practising Marketer (CPM) certification to collect points towards maintaining your CPM status.

We provide membership ticket pricing for PADC members and a student discount, contact us for more info.

Want to make sure we answer your specific question? Send them in advance to hey@themarketer.news

Grill The Marketer 2025

Choose your tickets

General Admission ticket

Season Ticket ticket